by J. D. Barker
I just stared at him, puzzled.
He rolled his eyes. “Christ. Okay, come on, we’re going inside.”
Chapter Six
Michael
Dobbs went first.
I followed him through the door and up the narrow staircase, Wilkins right behind me. An ancient floral-print wallpaper covered the wall, peeling in some places, torn away in others. The wood steps and railing were covered in so many layers of paint, I could barely make out the intricate carving on the banister. The heavy-gloss white paint on the steps was marred with scuffs and grime. The stagnant air stank of old cheese and chemicals from the businesses below.
The top of the stairs opened into a hallway with six doors. The one at the end on the left stood open with an overweight uniformed officer perched on a wooden chair next to the door, a half-eaten burrito in his hand. He gave Dobbs and Wilkins a nod and gestured toward the open door. “In there,” he mumbled, bits of beef tumbling from his full mouth.
“You’re a pig, Horton,” Dobbs said, walking past him and into the apartment.
I had stopped in the hall.
Wilkins gave my back a push, forced me inside.
A man in a white dress shirt, khakis, and a loosened dark blue tie came over when he spotted Dobbs. His gray hair was cropped short on the sides; he was bald on top. He was probably in his fifties. He held a clipboard in his hands, used it to point at the room behind him. “We left everything as is, just like you asked. I can’t keep my team standing around, though—we need to process this place. I’ve got another one downtown after we finish up here.”
“We won’t be long,” Dobbs said. “Ian, this is the man I told you about, Michael Kepler.”
Reflexively, I offered my hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
The man only stared.
Dobbs looked at me. “Ian Dantzler here heads three of LA’s crime scene investigative teams. Been with LAPD for twenty-two years now.”
“Twenty-three,” Dantzler corrected him.
Wilkins dropped a heavy hand onto my shoulder, looked at Dantzler. “Mr. Kepler says he found the vic in his bathtub after going out for a movie. Says he has no idea who she is. Says he’s never seen her before in his entire life. Figured we’d bring him down here, see how that goes.”
I absorbed about half of what he said.
My eyes were fixed on a framed photograph sitting on a small table near the door beside a bowl holding several loose keys and some change. A wood frame, stained a deep cherry. It was the image within that frame that had caught my eye, though, the image that held me. A photo of me with a very much alive Alyssa Tepper standing outside gate 4 of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. My hair was a little longer; I hadn’t worn it that way in some time. We both smiled at the camera, our hands entwined.
“This is her apartment,” I said softly.
“Wait for it,” Wilkins said, his grip tightening on my shoulder.
“I don’t…understand. I’ve never met her.”
“Fuck me.” Wilkins released my shoulder, pulled out his wallet, and handed two more dollars to Dobbs.
Dobbs pocketed the money but his gaze never left me. His lips were frozen in a sort of half grin. “Are you seriously going to deny that’s you?”
I felt my face flush. My cheeks grew warm, hot. “It’s fake…got to be. Photoshop or something. Some kind of trick or a joke.”
On the floor, between the small table and the front door, were several pairs of tennis shoes. Two of those pairs were obviously female; the third I recognized. Size 11 Nike Air VaporMax LTRs. The right one had a dark smudge near the toe where I had spilled coffee. By the time I’d tried to scrub it out, the stain had set. I hadn’t seen them in a while; they’d been misplaced somewhere in my closet.
Dobbs caught my millisecond glance at the shoes. “When we pull DNA, it’s going to match yours, right?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Your brain is no doubt chewing through a million thoughts,” Dobbs said. “While you’re being quiet, and it’s probably best that you do, I’d like you to consider one more thought. Possibly the most important thought you will ever consider in your life. If you tell us the truth now, if you cooperate, everything will be far easier for you. When we file charges, and we will file charges, they will be lesser charges than if you continue to deny your involvement in the death of Alyssa Tepper. LA County has some of the nastiest prosecutors in the country. They’re bitter, angry, fed up with all the bad press they receive, so when they get a case they see as a slam dunk, they take it to the rim. They milk it. They’ll make an example out of you and they’ll do it publicly. California is a death-penalty state when it comes to capital offenses, so you might find yourself standing in the gas chamber when the dust settles. Even if they don’t actually kill you—the last execution was more than a decade ago—they’d have no problem keeping you on death row for the rest of your life. You’re, what, twenty-six? That’s a long, long time. You cop to all this, you tell us the truth, and you’re probably looking at only twenty to thirty years, maybe less if you keep your head down, stay out of trouble. That’s not bad. You’d be out in your forties or fifties. Plenty of time to pull a new life together. Because you could still have a future, if you chose to.”
Dobbs turned back to Dantzler. “Do you mind giving us a tour of Ms. Tepper’s apartment? I think Michael has a right to know what else we’ve found.”
Chapter Seven
Michael
There were several other photos.
On the coffee table, there was one with Alyssa Tepper and me kissing outside a Hard Rock Café. In a silver frame beside the couch, one of the two of us with the famed Hollywood sign in the distance. Four of me alone, grinning, smiling, laughing. I remembered none of them being taken. In the small kitchen, held to the refrigerator with a Pizza Hut magnet, was one of me standing in the open door of my truck. Alyssa Tepper sat sideways in the driver’s seat up behind me wearing a white tank top and shorts, her legs wrapped around my chest. She had a Nadler Distribution ball cap perched at an angle on her head. My tongue was sticking out, and I had a goofy expression on my face. The photo was crinkled, faded, worn, as if it had been carried in a pocket for some time before finding a home next to a to-do list and a calendar from a local real estate agent.
I stared at that last one.
I stared at my own eyes looking back at me. Familiar, yet not.
I’d had only two girlfriends since moving to Los Angeles and I hadn’t shown either of them my truck, where I worked. I wasn’t ashamed; I loved my job. Security at Nadler was tight—nonemployees were not permitted on the lot for insurance reasons, and when I had the truck out, I was on the road. I didn’t linger in LA long enough to visit with anyone or take pictures.
“She looks happy there,” Dobbs said. “You make a cute couple.”
“Made,” Wilkins said from behind us.
Dantzler cleared his throat. “Yes, well, there’s more for you to see in the bedroom.”
He led us down a narrow hallway—bedroom on the left, small bathroom on the right. I stopped and looked in the bathroom. A CSI investigator was busy bagging up two toothbrushes—one pink, one blue—a men’s razor, a half-used bar of soap, and several other items I couldn’t see from where I stood. When she noticed me watching her, she pursed her lips and closed the bathroom door.
“In here,” Dantzler said from the bedroom.
The bedroom was small, no more than eleven by thirteen. A full-size bed was pushed into the corner opposite the door, a scratched and worn nightstand beside it. There was a dresser against the wall to our right. There were more photos in here—I stopped looking at them; my gut was churning. The bed was unmade, white sheets tangled in a brown quilt at the foot. Rumpled pillows tossed about.
An empty tripod stood near the back of the room. The video camera that no doubt had been perched atop that tripod was now on the dresser; wires trailed from the front of the camera to the back of a small flat-panel television. The
screen was on but blank.
Dantzler looked to Dobbs.
Dobbs nodded.
The lead investigator pressed several buttons on the camera and an image appeared. Grainy. The only light in the room came from candles on the nightstand. It was a side shot of the bed. On it, Alyssa Tepper, naked, her back arched, eyes closed, writhing as she slowly rose and fell. She rolled her head to the side, her hair moving from one shoulder to the other. Hands came up from beneath her, slid up her bare belly to her breasts, brushed her nipples. Hands I knew, arms I knew. When one of those arms came back down and pushed the quilt aside, then pushed it to the floor, I wanted to turn away. I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t look away. Like everyone else’s in the room, my eyes were fixed on the screen, my eyes locked on my body beneath hers, my own face glancing at the camera briefly before turning back to her and smiling, my voice whispering her name before sitting up and pulling her against me in the dim light.
“Turn it off,” I muttered.
Again, Dantzler looked to Dobbs.
Again, Dobbs nodded.
The screen went blank.
Dantzler pulled open one of the dresser drawers and stepped aside.
Dobbs nudged me toward the open drawer. “Take a look.”
Inside were several pairs of jeans, socks, underwear, a couple T-shirts. Some folded, others not. The drawer was nearly full.
“I think we’ve all had a drawer like this at one point or another,” Dobbs said. “A little home away from home. You’re not quite ready to bite the bullet and move in, but you’re spending enough nights with her to warrant some space. I don’t know about you, but I always found that moment nice, when a girl gives you a corner of her place. It shows she trusts you, finds comfort in your presence. I suppose it also means she drops her guard a bit, sometimes a little too much. Do you recognize the clothing, Michael?”
I didn’t reply.
“I bet you do,” Dobbs said. “I bet you remember the day she gave you that drawer.”
All three men watched me close, studied me. I didn’t look in the drawer—I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. The top of the dresser was cluttered with headbands, jewelry; earrings and necklaces sat in an open wooden box. My eyes fell on one particular necklace near the bottom—a bird feather attached to a thin leather strap. A sparrow feather.
I quickly looked away.
Chapter Eight
Michael
They took me to LAPD headquarters on First Street.
This time, Dobbs did handcuff me, although I wasn’t read my rights.
None of us spoke in the car.
Inside the building, Dobbs and Wilkins guided me past the front desk to a bank of elevators on the east wall. We got in one, exited on the third floor, and crossed through a large bullpen humming with activity despite the ungodly early hour. The dozens of desks, tables, and chairs were filled with people from all walks of life—gangbangers and prostitutes and men dressed in drag; old people and screaming children; a man in a four-thousand-dollar suit with a twenty-something woman wearing an equally expensive dress, both shouting at two uniformed officers. Their hair was disheveled, and he had a tear in his right jacket sleeve. At first I thought they were the victims of a mugging but then I realized they were both in handcuffs with a ziplock bag of colorful pills on the desk between them and the cops. At the far end of the room, I was photographed and fingerprinted. The female officer, clearly proficient, rolled my fingers one at a time over the digital reader.
When she was finished with me, Dobbs tugged at my arm and Wilkins gave me a shove. They led me down a hallway, deeper into the building, leaving the noise behind us.
Dobbs opened a door marked INTERVIEW ROOM 7—DO NOT ENTER WHEN RED LIGHT IS ON and ushered me inside. “Get comfortable.”
He left. The door locked with a loud clack! and I was alone.
I sat there for two hours.
I had never been in an interrogation room before, but nonetheless, the space felt familiar. I’d seen enough of them in films and on television and it was clear that those in Hollywood didn’t travel farther than LA for their inspiration. The room wasn’t very large, maybe ten feet square, with a drop ceiling and fluorescent lights beaming down. The cinder-block walls were painted a muted gray. A metal table was bolted to the wall and the floor with two black cloth chairs on one side and a single chair on the other. A large one-way mirror filled the wall to my left, and a camera faced me from the corner above. I tried to sit in the single chair but with my hands cuffed behind me, I had to sit on the edge of the table instead.
Two hours.
Dobbs returned alone carrying two cups of coffee. He set them down on the table and closed the door with his foot. “Turn around.”
He removed the handcuffs and told me to take a seat.
I rubbed at my wrists. “I’m supposed to get a phone call.”
“In a minute.”
“You haven’t even read me my rights.”
“I haven’t arrested you.” Dobbs slid one of the coffees toward me. “Take a seat.”
I lowered myself tentatively into a chair. “I need to call my sister. She’s got to be worried.”
Dobbs pursed his lips, turned his own coffee cup counterclockwise, and took a drink. “Have you thought about what I said?”
I looked him dead in the eye. “I have no idea who that woman is. I’ve never met her. I’ve never been to her apartment. I’ve certainly never slept with her. Somebody is trying to set me up.”
Dobbs looked down at his coffee cup, turned it slowly again. “Give me a DNA sample.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Why not? If you’re innocent, there’s no reason not to, right?”
I shook my head. “Not until I talk to my sister. I want my phone back.”
“Your phone has been logged into evidence. You can file a petition to have it returned to you but I can tell you, it won’t be released until this case is closed.” He pushed the second cup toward me. “Drink some coffee. Relax. Let’s just talk, okay? Just the two of us. Try to clear this up.”
“Right. Just the two of us. Who’s behind the window there? Who’s watching the camera feed?”
Dobbs glanced up at the one-way window. “Nobody’s in there and the camera isn’t on. No blinking red light. It’s just us now.”
“Right.” I smirked, took a sip of the coffee. “I know how this works.”
“Have you been arrested before?”
“You said I’m not under arrest.”
He waved a hand. “You know what I mean.”
“I’ve never been inside a police station before.”
“Really?”
“Never.”
“Never been in any trouble at all, huh? Perfect citizen?”
“I do my best.”
“Tell me about Alyssa Tepper.”
I took another sip of the coffee. “I’m not gonna kill a girl in my own apartment, then call the police to report it.”
“You’re on the road for, what, two-thirds of the month? Everyone’s got needs. Did she cheat on you? Did she catch you cheating on her? Tempers flare, emotions take over, bad things happen. I’ve seen it before, Michael, more times than I can count. You can be straight with me.”
“I’ve told you the truth from the beginning.”
Dobbs head tilted to the side. “Have you?”
“Yes.”
“You told me your name is Michael Kepler. Since we’re being honest with each other, why don’t you start by telling me your real name.”
Chapter Nine
Michael
That is my real name.”
“Your prints came back as belonging to Michael Fitzgerald,” Dobbs said. “You’re in the system because of your commercial license.”
“I’m adopted. Fitzgerald is their name, not mine. I was born Michael Kepler.”
“Legally, your name is Michael Fitzgerald.”
“Well, that’s not me. Never has been.”
&
nbsp; “You’re not fond of your parents, are you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Dobbs shrugged. “I looked them up when your prints came back. The Fitzgeralds are well known back east, a family of considerable resources. Both shrinks, right? I found their names on dozens of websites. Academic stuff, mostly. Over my head, for sure. Well respected in their fields, tenured professors at Cornell, your alma mater.” He lowered his eyes. “Sorry to hear about your father. Aneurysm, right?”
“Adoptive father.”
Dobbs twisted his coffee cup again. “They’re a family of considerable resources.”
“You said that already.”
Dobbs curled his fingers around the edge of the table. “I suppose that’s why you called your sister first? Give her a chance to run some interference?”
I looked at him, puzzled. “I’m not sure what—”
Two knocks at the door. Swift. Hard.
The door swung open.
Detective Wilkins came in, followed by a heavyset man wearing a charcoal-gray suit so perfectly fitted that the tailor might well have come marching in behind him holding a needle and thread. The man’s salt-and-pepper hair was slicked back, appropriate for an evening out, not walking into a police interview room at four in the morning. His sharp eyes held the wisdom of a man in his sixties, but his face and his even sharper, beak-like nose belonged to a much younger man, late forties at the most. He carried a slim leather briefcase, which he set in the middle of the table between me and Dobbs. He turned his gaze first on the detective, then on me.
“Is it safe to assume you haven’t said anything to this upstanding public servant or his colleagues?” A deep voice, all bass. His manicured fingers triggered the latches on his briefcase; he reached inside, removed a notepad and pen, then closed the case. “Never mind, don’t answer that.” He turned to Dobbs and Wilkins. “Gentlemen, can you give me a moment with my client?”